Game Theory: How Minecraft BROKE YouTube!

The butterfly effect is the idea that small actions can have large consequences, rippling through time to change history in significant ways.

• Wearing a belt in middle school prevented embarrassment and affected the speaker's school experience • Simple conversations with a friend in choir helped prevent his suicide and allowed him to touch thousands of lives • Starting Game Theory as a side project led to over 1 billion people being impacted and a community of 8 million theorists

Small decisions and actions have consequences that can unexpectedly change history in big ways.

YouTube made a single algorithmic change in 2012 that created a perfect storm, unintentionally creating Minecraft as the biggest game of all time, which then broke YouTube, forcing YouTube to try to kill it.

In 2012, YouTube switched from a view-based system to a watch-time based system that favored videos keeping people watching longer.

• Reply girls and clickbait thumbnails were replaced by more substantial content • Low-quality short videos lost visibility in favor of longer, engaging content • Good content that kept people watching received more promotion

• YouTube musicians and cover artists like Tyler Ward saw declining subscriptions and viewership • Animators and short-form cartoon creators couldn't compete with the system built for longer videos • The algorithm inadvertently disadvantaged creative content that wasn't in long-form format

Gaming content, which had never been a major force on YouTube, suddenly thrived under the new algorithm because long gameplay videos with built-in narratives were perfectly suited to drive watch time.

• Machinima from RoosterTeeth such as Red vs. Blue and Arby 'n' the Chief • Real-life visual effects content from creators like Freddie Wong and CorridorDigital (First Person Mario, Dubstep Guns) • Character-driven scripted comedy sketches like Reckless Tortuga's Online Gamer and James Rolfe's Angry Video Game Nerd

Gaming was primarily sketch-based and character-driven rather than gameplay-based, and was not a dominant force on YouTube.

SeaNanners (Adam Montoya) was the only individual gamer in the YouTube top hundred channels through most of 2011.

Gaming had minimal presence on YouTube compared to other content types, with only a handful of notable creators.

The first Minecraft video with commentary was uploaded on May 21, 2009 when the game was still a Java applet.

SeaNanners started his Minecraft series on August 25, 2010, which led YouTube viewers to really start noticing the game.

BlueXephos (better known as YogsCast), a channel that had previously uploaded nearly 500 videos mostly of Warcraft, took Minecraft's open-world nature and created fantastical adventures that inspired millions to pick up the game.

Within weeks, BlueXephos became the fastest growing channel on YouTube, with Minecraft's growth directly tied to their growth.

After September's adventure update, interest in Minecraft on YouTube began showing signs of stagnation despite initial enthusiasm.

• Google Trends data showed that while the update caused a huge uptake in interest, enthusiasm didn't maintain • General web search growth had slowed significantly • The game had between 1-10 million copies sold and just over 10 million registered users

Without intervention, Minecraft would have been an indie success but not the gaming legend it became.

What happened to propel Minecraft from indie success to the second most selling game of all time?

YouTube's watch time-based algorithm perfectly favored Let's Play videos, which were long daily videos with narratives already built into the games.

• Long videos that could be produced daily meant consistent watch time • Games provided built-in narratives that kept viewers wanting to binge-watch like Netflix • Viewers wanted to see the next chapter in ongoing stories • Nothing else on YouTube had this same magic formula

• Gaming videos went from 0 to 6-14 videos on the YouTube homepage daily • Approximately 50% of the YouTube homepage was gaming content • Gaming videos always dominated the top slots, beating out Jimmy Fallon, music artists, movie trailers, and branded channels

• Endless ways to play and constant flow of new mods • Ease of producing story-driven animated Machinima • Appeal to younger audiences willing to watch longer sessions • Perfect timing before toy unboxing and problematic children's content took over

YouTube had shifted how it sorted videos at the exact time Minecraft channels had developed dedicated viewers watching build tutorials, Jaffa factories, and Nether adventures.

• Minecraft and gaming channels dominated 3-6 slots daily on the homepage every single day • YogsCast alone sometimes had 2-3 videos on the homepage simultaneously • A single channel owned multiple homepage spots

Before the algorithm shift, only four independent gamers were in the top 100 most subscribed channels; in just 5 months that jumped to ten, each growing 2-3 times faster than non-gaming channels.

The algorithmic loophole helped Minecraft accelerate from an indie success into the gaming legacy it is today.

Practically overnight, gaming disappeared from the YouTube homepage after dominating it for months.

• May 2012: 14 videos on homepage (peak) • June: 7-9 videos average • July: approximately 5 videos • September: zero gaming videos daily with rare exceptions only for launch trailers

• Viewer behavior remained consistent with Google Trends showing sustained interest in Minecraft channels • YogsCast was on target to be the second largest channel on YouTube • The cutoff was too abrupt to be caused by viewer preference shift

Why would YouTube intentionally remove gaming content that drove engagement and long watch sessions?

While dedicated fans loved gaming content, casual YouTube users visiting for the first time would likely leave if the homepage showed only blocky British Vikings fighting pixelated green monsters.

• Little Johnny would be excited for Honeydew making Jaffa cakes • Casual 'normies' would assume YouTube wasn't a place for them • Six homepage slots dominated by Minecraft, Call of Duty, and Happy Wheels would deter new users

• Google Trends data shows search interest for YouTube was declining during the period when gaming dominated the homepage • After five years of nearly constant growth, YouTube was losing momentum • September when gaming was removed from the homepage is also when search interest in YouTube picked back up

YouTube nerfed gaming from the algorithm to appeal to a wider mainstream audience and boost their overall site traffic and search interest.

• Gaming went from a niche community to mainstream viewer genre • The homepage introduced a generation to watching other people game • Let's Play became the second biggest thing on YouTube behind music

• Channels like PewDiePie and Tobuscus saw explosive growth from the homepage loophole • Channels like Captainsparklez and AntVenom grew rapidly then slowed once gaming was removed • YogsCast's growth was blocked just as they were poised to challenge PewDiePie for the top spot

A five-month period of algorithmic loophole exploitation transformed gaming from niche to mainstream and touched hundreds of millions of lives.

Without those five months of homepage promotion, Minecraft would certainly have been less successful, though it's impossible to say exactly where it would have ended up.

YouTube and online platforms in general have power over your tastes, offering only an illusion of choice.

• One small algorithmic change helped an indie game transform gaming as we know it • That same change made watching other people play video games into one of the most popular forms of entertainment today • What viewers see and what becomes popular is often determined by factors that aren't quality

• Humans watch what's presented to them and what's right in front of their faces • People tend to watch what's popular thinking a million views means it must be great • Both of these things are often determined by algorithmic factors

• Viewers should be aware that platforms have significant power over their content consumption • YouTube and similar platforms should take responsibility for their influence seriously • It's a big burden to carry in shaping what entertainment and content becomes mainstream